It's crazy. I mean, Cracker Barrel now
has been on both sides of the culture
war, right? So, um you know, in the
first Trump presidency, there the the
left had taken issue with some people
that were dining at at Cracker Barrel,
right? And now you have the right uh up
in arms. It's kind of sad to see to be
honest with you. I think the right was
on the right side of history the first
time and I think you know now that
they're in power they're you know be you
know the ones engaging in cancel
culture. So it's uh kind of
disappointing to see. I think they've
been very unfair towards uh Julie Msino
who's in our opinion has done a great
job so far.
You know one of the things more
substantive than the logo is kind of the
interiors of the restaurants and the
menu. There's some big changes there
with these new formats. Is are they
still moving ahead with that? Uh Mike,
yeah, and and we're seeing results.
They've been beating and the streets
been forced to raise their estimates
throughout the year, right? So sales are
inlecting higher. We expect traffic to
in inflect higher in this next fiscal
year over the next 12 months or so. So
yeah, things are going well. I mean,
they've gotten a lot of shade online
about the remodels, obviously, about
this logo rebrand, but these people
complaining clearly weren't going to the
stores because Sam same store sales and
traffic have been in the gutter for
years. So, you know, to us, I think a
lot of the complaining is done by people
that really don't frequent Cracker
Barrel. They're using it as an excuse to
kind of push their ideologies. Um, and
it's it's you know, it is what it is.
But
models and these refreshes are working.
They're bringing they're they're
bringing in, you know, dinner business
has improved for five straight quarters,
right? And they're trying to bring in
younger consumers who really basically
left the brand for dead. You know, it
wasn't a member of their consideration
set, right? And so we think the
management team is making the right
moves, refreshing their stores, giving
them a fresh coat of paint, you know, uh
updating the the furniture inside,
right? And and you know, we we expect
these to continue to help boost results.
Yeah. Have they had to raise prices at
all? Because I know that's a sensitive
area for their customer base, really for
everybody, right? But I mean, how have
they been able to deal with tariffs and
and not having to raise prices unless
they are
Yeah. So they have a little bit more
exposure to tariffs because of their
retail stores in the front. Uh about 20%
of those items in that retail store are
sourced from China. Um they have been
working hard to kind to work, you know,
to uh source products uh from other
countries or within the United States to
try to um ease that impact, right? Um
but that's a that's a smaller part of
their sales. the restaurant sales are a
much bigger part of their average uh
unit volumes in the in the restaurants,
right? Um the good thing for Cracker
Barrel is that it's priced so far below
its casual dining competitors, right?
Average checks at dinner are, you know,
maybe 30 40% cheaper than some of their
competitors,
right? And so they've been able to lean
into strategic pricing. They were late
to the game there. and this new
management team. This is one of their
many initiatives that they've uh
implemented to to try to boost topline
growth. Um and so they're strategically
raising prices 5% but it's at the units
that can support it based on
you know demographics in the uh DMA. All
right.